Are Singaporeans just 'air-con princesses' then?

Recently I had such a heated argument (pun intended, wait for it) with a friend in Singapore on Facebook that I thought he was going to delete me as a friend - but instead he simply deleted the post along with the fiery exchange I had with him there. Now this guy is a European expatriate and a long term resident in Singapore and like all xiao angmohs, he adores the tropical heat in Singapore. This all kicked off when he posted a video of himself after a jog, wringing his sweat out of his jogging attire and let's just say, there was a lot of sweat. It was the kind of video that was meant to provoke a reaction on social media, so there was the usual, "yucks, that's gross" kind of comments from some of his Singaporean friends but he then said something I took offence to. He referred to Singaporeans who found his video distasteful as "Singaporean air-con princesses" - I found that comment offensive on so many levels that I launched a blistering attack on him, but instead of responding, he just deleted the original post. So, why did I take such offence to his remark then?

Now firstly, you have to understand that the grass is always going to be greener on the other side of the fence. Kids in Singapore are going to watch a fun Youtube videos of people skiing in Europe and think, "Sigh, I really wish it would snow in Singapore, why is Singapore so bloody hot all the time? There is just no escape from the relentless heat in Singapore!" And on the other side of the earth, during late December in Europe, it isn't just freezing cold, it is also very dark: if you were in Iceland, the sun rises at about 11 am and sets at 2:30 pm at that time of the year. At least here in London, the sun rises at 7:30 am and sets at 4 pm - I hate that part of the afternoon when I am busy working and I look out of the window and realize, oh shit, it is night already and I'm still stuck here working. The coldness and the darkness of winter can be quite depressing for some people and that's when they start dreaming about lying on a sandy beach, busking in bright sunshine on a tropical island like Singapore where the temperature is hot enough to make them break out into a sweat just sitting under a coconut tree. In fact, the winters in Finland are so cold and bleak that they had to invent the sauna, just to create a room hot and humid enough to make them sweat even when it is -40 degrees outside. I once visited a sauna in Helsinki that had some really tacky plastic palm trees and posters of beautiful tropical beaches everywhere (including one of Sentosa!) because that is what they dream about in the middle of a bleak Finnish winter.

So of course, my European friend had endured many bitterly cold winters growing up in Europe - I remember visiting him in his home town many years ago when it fell to -9 degrees and thus for him, of course Singapore is a tropical paradise that he had always wanted to move to and I suppose the novelty of the tropical heat still hasn't worn off after quite a few years in Singapore for him. Likewise for myself, winter is still my favourite season. It is actually quite cold in London now and my gymnastics club actually feels quite a lot colder these days as it is a huge building with very high ceilings. My friend Steve complained to me about how he had to wear so many layers whilst in the gym and I actually replied, "I actually like it cold like this, because I can train hard for hours without even sweating!" Steve just looked at me like, are you insane? You like shivering in this cold? And he asked me, "But Alex, aren't you from Singapore?" I replied, "yes, I am and most Singaporeans will agree with me that it is such bliss to do sports in a temperature where we don't sweat at all, because we are probably sick and tired of sweating just doing simple activities like crossing the road or making a cup of coffee. My sister is a runner and she loved running in London in the middle of winter as she would barely sweat at all when it was that cold. Just tying your shoe laces in Singapore is more than enough to make you break out into a sweat." 

That's me on a beach in Sri Lanka. Yes it was hot.

Yes Singapore is hot and in order to avoid sweating, you have to pay for air-conditioning. That is why you can get a local meal for as little as $2 at a hawker center but becomes like $5 or $6 when you go to an air-conditioned food court. Those who are struggling to make ends meet in Singapore will not have air-conditioning in their HDB flats whilst the rich won't just have their bedrooms air-conditioned, but often every single room in a nice condominium will be air-conditioned. Ironically, my European expatriate friend lives in one such nice condominium, where even his bathrooms are air-conditioned. Thus having access to air-conditioning becomes a status symbol: a sign that you can indeed pay for the comfort of avoiding the tropical heat everywhere you go whilst the unwashed masses are sweating it out in the midday sun. So if money wasn't an object, would you choose to eat your chicken rice in a hawker center (and put up with the heat and humidity there) or pay for the air-conditioned comfort of a food court where you know you will not sweat? Even though the buses and the MRT in Singapore have air-conditioning, there is still a lot of walking and waiting around in areas without air-conditioning to complete your journey by public transport: thus those who can afford it will simply get a taxi or Uber to ensure that they will have a far more pleasant, cooler journey. The two extremes can be represented by the foreign worker sweating it out on a construction site in the midday heat and the hedge fund manager sitting in his comfortable air-conditioned office: thus by that token, rich people in Singapore sweat a lot less than the poor.

This is hardly a situation unique to Singapore - when I was working in Dubai, the rich Arabs lived in beautiful homes that were completely air-conditioned. They would drive to work in their air-conditioned cars and of course, the offices (or schools etc) would be completely air-conditioned. We're talking about a country where temperatures in the summer can reach 54 degrees, so if you can afford it, you make sure that your car is never parked under the sun and the very rich who have chauffeurs would send the poor chauffeur out in the heat to prepare the car: that means turning on the air-conditioning for a few minutes until it is a lot more comfortable, before allowing the passengers to get in. In fact, the Arabs are so obsessed with keeping cool in the desert heat that they built the world's biggest indoor ski resort: Ski Dubai is so huge and you can actually do some decent skiing there. So if you were to tell the rich Arabs that they are "air-con princesses" for refusing to sweat in the desert heat in Dubai, you would seriously offend them. After all, it is only the very poorest of foreign workers who work outdoors there, they are the ones on the construction sites, doing the gardening, cleaning the streets even when the temperature is painfully hot. It is no different from Singapore: only the very poor have to suffer the heat and sweat, whilst the rich stay cool in air-conditioned comfort, or in the case of Dubai, they go skiing.

Thus my European friend did misjudge the situation in accusing his Singaporean friends of being 'air-con princesses' because his Singaporean friends (and I am including myself in that category) are not averse to the heat because we're somehow flawed, weak or frail - but simply, we are using our refusal to sweat in Singapore as a stamp of our social class and economic prowess, to show that we are rich and not poor. Such is the cultural context of why so many of his friends reacted rather negatively to the video of his sweat, indeed, many Singaporeans would actually choose to go to an air-conditioned gym to exercise there, so they would minimize amount they would sweat. Singapore doesn't have a class system like the UK, what does separate people into different social stratas and determines their social status is primarily their wealth. That is why I am rather disappointed that despite having lived in Singapore for so many years, my European friend has totally failed to grasp why his local friends had an averse reaction to his video - I accused him of being a poorly integrated migrant who has arrogantly ignored the local culture and is instead imposing his European ways on his Singaporean friends. If he enjoys jogging in the midday sun in Singapore, fine, but don't be surprised if your local friends are culturally averse to the video of you flaunting your excessive sweat because of our local cultural norms.

Ironically, for a tropical country where the temperature rarely dips below 24 degrees, Singaporeans are actually far more averse to sweating than Europeans. I remember an incident in 2011 when NSP candidate Nicole Seah was busy campaigning in the run up to the elections and she was photographed sweating profusely in a hawker center. Let's just say the photos were not flattering, her pink shirt was soaked with sweat and despite desperately wiping her face with tissues, she still looked exhausted from the heat. She was probably so focused on trying to speak to as many people as possible she wasn't aware of how she looked in those photos, but once those pictures were circulated online, she was attacked for looking undignified, for 'sweating like a maid'. Some even went as far as to say that a politician should look dignified and respectable and she looked anything but that in those photos taken at that hawker center. Of course I felt bad for Nicole Seah as I know she is a great person - I knew she cared far less about her appearances than trying to win every possible vote, that's why she was out campaigning in the midday heat rather than hiding away in the comfort of an air-conditioned office. But only in Singapore, could her valiant efforts actually work against her. Trying to explain this to a non-Singaporean would probably confuse the heck out of them, but when I saw the reaction of the netizens, I thought, yeah, that's Singapore for you because I totally actually understand how Singaporeans feel about the issue of sweat.

Singaporeans are actually very sensible when it comes to coping with the hot weather - this comes with living in a tropical country and realizing what you can and cannot do in this heat. You get to know the limits the weather can put on your body and you make the necessary adjustments in order not to punish your body. For example, marathons in Singapore are always run in the pre-dawn hours when it is the coolest part of the day: the start of the 2017 Singapore marathon will be at 4:30 am. This is to minimize the impact of the tropical weather on the runners. During the hottest part of the day, the locals will avoid venturing outdoors to minimize the discomfort from the unforgiving heat. When we do get hot summer days in the UK, the locals here are completely unable to cope: many get badly sunburnt when they stay out in the sun and even heatstroke as they are unaware of the effect of the heat on their bodies. Many white people don't realize how much they sweat in those conditions and oh boy, some of them smell really bad during the summer. So when it comes to coping with hot weather, I'd much rather listen to a Singaporean than trust a European person. To be fair, most Singaporeans are pretty clueless when it comes to winter weather - but that's another story for another day.

Here's a tragic story to illustrate just how clueless Europeans can be when it comes to hot weather. In 2013, two soldiers died in a training exercise in Wales on the hottest day of the year because they simply were not able to cope with the hot weather. The soldiers were part of a group performing a four hour long exercise that included marching about 14 miles (22.5 km) whilst carrying a rifle and equipment weighing 20 kgs. This is the kind of 'road march' that most Singaporean men would have had to do during their BMT - in fact the Singaporean version is about 24 km long and carried out in much hotter conditions. Here's the part that will make most Singaporeans roll their eyes in disbelief: the British newspapers made a big deal about the temperatures that day hitting 28 degrees. Like hello, that's a cool day in Singapore but hot enough to make British soldiers drop dead? Geez, one wonders how this country ever managed to establish colonies in places like India, Nigeria, Malaysia and Sri Lanka if the British soldiers are so inept when it comes to coping with a relatively hot day. Now with this in mind, would you rather take advice from a Singaporean when it comes to coping with the tropical weather, or from a European expat who celebrates his sweating exploits on social media?

Just a few days ago, Prince Charles was in Singapore and he visited Tiong Bahru market with his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall. Most Singaporeans were laughing at how inappropriate he (and his entire entourage) were dressed when walking through Tiong Bahru in business suits that were totally inappropriate for the Singaporean heat. Look, when you visit a hot country and you have to walk around like that, being overdressed will lead to sweating and if you refuse to shed your jacket, then the sweat will simply soak into your clothing and before long, you will start to smell pretty bad. The only way to deal with that problem is to dress appropriately for the weather. That is why when I look at the photos of the royal entourage in Tiong Bahru, I just shake my head and think, "alamak, xiao angmohs, totally, utterly clueless, what the hell are you wearing?" After all, you're not going to cause offence to the locals by turning up in Tiong Bahru market without a suit and tie - you are however, going to embarrass yourself if you start sweating profusely in such a situation and get slayed online, the same way Nicole Seah was. Perhaps the British royal entourage was loving the topical heat and welcoming the opportunity to work up a sweat in Singapore, but may I remind them that they are not on holiday in Singapore, thus looking presentable and respectable should be their priority. After all, Prince Charles was in Singapore to forge ties with the locals, no doubt to try to boost bilateral trade in the wake of Brexit: surely his advisers should have briefed his team about the local culture in Singapore and how we feel about politicians sweating profusely.

Is this just a big cultural misunderstanding then? Are Europeans simply less fussed about sweat than Singaporeans? The answer is no - whilst the Brits may dream about beautiful tropical islands like Singapore as winter approaches, there is still a huge taboo about sweat and the associated body odour that comes with sweating profusely. Liking the idea of a tropical holiday to somewhere hot like Puerto Rico doesn't mean you don't mind sitting next to a smelly, sweaty man on the train. Don't forget, British society is still very much obsessed with the concept of social class and if you have a white-collar job (such as a lawyer, an accountant, an investment banker), then you use your brain to earn a living: that means sitting comfortably without having to sweat at all. But if you have a blue-collar job (such as a waiter, a cleaner, a construction site labourer), then you have to use your muscles to make a living and you're constantly on your feet all day, working up quite a sweat. That's why those with white-collar jobs dress very differently from those with blue collar jobs because of the sweat factor. A factory worker who has to sweat all day, doing manual labour on the production line has to wear a very functional uniform, whilst say an computer programmer doesn't have to worry about sweat as the heaviest thing he has to carry all day is his laptop. Indeed, if a factory worker looks too clean and smells too fresh at the end of the working day, he could be accused by his peers of having not worked hard enough because he simply hasn't sweated like the rest of them. So the situation with British society really isn't that different from Singapore - it is just that we tend to have natural air-conditioning for most of the year apart from summer so the issue of sweating isn't often on our agenda.

But this goes beyond looking cool as a cucumber in a business meeting - I'd like to share with you a story which happened to me at the infamous Kandy Goods Shed bus station when I was younger and backpacking my way around Sri Lanka. This is the bus station where the long distance inter-city buses depart from and in order to guarantee your seat on the long bus ride, you would sit in the bus for up to 30 minutes before the bus departed, knowing that it would be probably be very packed. Now I did just that and before long, I was sweating profusely as it was about 34 degrees outside and probably quite a bit more in that bus with no air-conditioning. Something began to smell really bad and I looked around accusingly, trying to identify the source of that awful stench and to my horror, I realized that I was the source of that horrid smell. I was so mortified at what my body was doing - barely an hour earlier, I had emerged from the guest house freshly showered and doused with deodorant: I was a backpacker but at least a decent smelling, clean one. Now, within ten minutes of getting on that bus, I had that desperate desire to have another shower because I simply hated that feeling of feeling so unclean. It is one thing to start sweating profusely, it is another to be stuck in your sticky, sweat-stained clothes smelling rather foul. I remember just how wretched I felt sat there in that stationary bus in Kandy - it went way beyond hygiene. It wasn't that the other passengers on the bus were smelling decent either, but I was so frustrated that there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop my body from reacting to the high temperatures like that. 

It is important to understand what the sweating process does to our body: sweat itself is mostly water with trace amounts of ammonia, urea, salts and other minerals. Our bodies start sweating once our body temperatures rises and when it is really hot, even just sitting still on a bus can make you sweat a lot. A modest amount of sweating usually wouldn't result in a 'Kandy bus station' moment. In fact, the evaporation of the sweat from our skin is intended to cool our bodies down when we get too hot.  But that nasty body odor we loathe is primarily the result of the apocrine sweat glands, which secrete the majority of chemical compounds needed for the skin flora to metabolize it into odorant substances: in short, when you sweat, it is not natural or clean and it can smell pretty bad. The areas usually worst affected are our arm pits and our genitals because that's where those pesky apocrine sweat glands are. Deodorant may provide temporary relief to the smell but really, what you really need a long, hot shower and some quality shower gel when you start to smell bad. If you are unable to change your clothes when you sweat profusely, the sweat that soaks into your clothing is actually spreading the stench that may have started at your arm pits but though osmosis, your sweat will carry that bad smell all over your clothes. Our bodies do create these odours because we are animals and it is what animals produce naturally.

So for the people who claim that working up a good sweat is somehow healthy, natural or good for the skin, I would treat that with caution. Let's go back to our Finnish friends in the sauna in the middle of winter - now they would tell you that because they don't sweat in the bitterly cold winters in Finland, their pores can become clogged so there's nothing like a good sauna session to unclog some of those pores with a good sweat. Well, let me point out that the Finnish would also have a good shower and wash the sweat off their bodies after each sauna session because allowing the sweat to remain on the skin would only lead to body odour. And of course, they use the saunas either in the nude or just in their underwear, so there is no risk of transmitting any of the bad odours to their clothes when they sweat. That is quite different from the situation in Singapore, where people end up sweating into their clothes involuntarily the moment they step out into the tropical heat. In fact, a very modest amount of sweating is more than enough to unclog any pores that need to be cleaned out and any excessive sweating on top of that is pointless - you're just losing water and building up nasty odours. The only reason why people spend so long in the sauna, sweating so much, is because they are not going to just spend just long enough to sweat a very modest amount after they have taken the trouble to travel to the sauna.

But allow me also to explain why I take such issue with the label, "air-con princesses". If a student chooses to spend his parents' hard earned money on fancy lunches in food courts rather than hawker centers, then I can see why that would be objectionable. Having a more expensive lunch should be a luxury and if the student is not earning his own money yet, should he be spending his pocket money on luxuries when there is indeed a cheaper option? And what if I told you that his parents are not rich, so that money the student is spending on his fancy food court lunches could be spent on something far more vital for the family? So yes, under some circumstances, I could see how that label could be appropriate. I absolutely detest the heat in Singapore, so does that make me an air-con princess because I choose to avoid the heat in Singapore? Hang on a second, I working in corporate finance: I am spending my own money - money that I have earned, on avoiding sweating profusely, which happens to be a social and cultural taboo for me. Should I be berated for being a princess, simply for choosing to spend my wealth on some luxuries to make me feel a lot more comfortable about my surroundings and well-being, especially when I can afford it? I recently went to New Zealand for a holiday - should I be accused of being a globe-trotting princess, just because I spent all that money on a luxury holiday?

Having served NS, I have seen a lot of 'princesses' who have never done any house work in their lives before prior to enlistment and during area cleaning, they don't even know how to do the most basic tasks like make a bed or use a mop.  I'll use the label 'princess' in a disparaging way to insult those people. However, the issue of air-conditioning and the tropical weather in Singapore is not about being a 'princess' but it is a far more complex issue that has much to do with social status and social taboos that are unique to Singapore. I have been critical of men in Singapore in the past on my blog, but I would not allow this white guy to use the label 'air-con princess' on Singaporean men because it simply isn't accurate or fair. After all, there's nothing manly or macho about enduring the tropical heat and humidity in Singapore only to break out into a sweat - all you have to do is stand or even sit outside in the middle of the day and you will sweat automatically within minutes with virtually no effort. Sweating like that is but an involuntary response on the part of our bodies that we have absolutely no control over - we can exercise enough control over when we visit the toilet, we can even hold our breaths for a limited amount of time, but no amount of mind control or will power can stop our bodies from sweating the moment it wants to. In fact, to avoid sweating in a tropical country like Singapore actually takes a lot more effort than to simply give in to the heat and allow nature to take over. If my European friend is going to accuse us of being "air-con princesses", then I am going to accuse him of being a uncouth barbarian with no regard for personal hygiene.

At the end of the day, I have lost a lot of respect for this European friend of mine because this whole episode just demonstrated to me how he had failed to understand this facet of Singaporean culture and if he can live this many years in Singapore without taking the effort to understand the culture, then it clearly shows he has little intention to integrate or assimilate. Why bother living in Singapore if all you're there for is the hot weather? There are plenty of saunas and tanning salons in Europe if all you really want to do is sweat and get a tan. How do you feel about the issue of sweating in Singapore then? Is sweating or body odour a social or cultural taboo for you? Are Singaporeans indeed 'air-con princesses' for being this averse to sweating despite living in a tropical country? Or are we just being sensible about the effects of the tropical heat? Please let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. Many thanks for reading.